Prayer is listening too

I was reminded this morning of something that I know all too well, but too often fail to practice. That thing is the simple act of listening to God when praying. I read two blogs almost every day and today they both hit the same topic, that of listening to God. You can read them here and here. It seems that most of the time when I come to prayer, I spend all of the time talking and very little listening. I want to make sure that God knows what "I need or want" and when done with my list, the session ends, often abruptly. Am I the only one, or do you have this problem as well?

So for me, going forward, I intend to cultivate the skill of listening in my quiet time. I will do my best to remove all the extraneous thoughts and worries. I will spend time quietly listening for His voice. That indeed will be a blessing in my life.

Weekend trip

We made the big loop this past weekend and were able to visit with all of our children and grandchildren. Our second oldest grandchild was graduating from high school and we were able to attend. It was great to be able to go and offer congratulations in person. We don't get to see her very often so it was special.

We travelled 1300 miles in all and saw flooding on the Mississippi to extremely dry conditions in south Texas. On Friday we stopped for gas at Krotz Springs LA and folks were under evacuation orders as the Corps of Engineers was preparing to open the Morganza spillway and flood their homes. On Saturday as we crossed the Atchafalaya floodway we saw many pickups and trailers loaded with furniture and belongings being moved to higher ground. The water wasn't there yet but they knew it was coming, and when it did, all that was in the way would be lost. That was a sad part of the trip.

We did see some lower gas prices though and that was encouraging. All in all it was a good trip, we were safe, the car performed admirably and we are back home.